http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/jim-frederick-newsroom

A bizarre and tragic incident being described as one of the worst violent crimes of the Iraqi War is chronicled in a new book, Black Hearts, by Jim Frederick. The story follows the deployment of a platoon of soldiers in the so-called Triangle of Death in 2005-2006. The stress of being in the most violent area of a war zone during the worst period of the conflict drove many of these men to depression, substance abuse, and ultimately murder.

The human rights abuses that are mentioned in the interview in the link above are hard for many Americans to come to terms with. As a nation, we are tired of hearing bad news from the Middle East and after seven years of war, we are ready to forget the whole ugly business. However, the story of Pvt. Steven Green, and the other men of his platoon who were accused of raping a 14-year-old girl and murdering and then immolating her family, should not be forgotten. It is important to realize the destruction that comes with war, both to the psyches of soldiers and the lives of civilians.

Frederick’s book has been described by one reviewer as a mix between, “‘In Cold Blood’, ‘Black Hawk Down’, with a bit of ‘Apocalypse Now’.” A platoon’s harrowing fall into insanity and depravity is a fitting example of some of the darker and more realistic results of the Iraqi War.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39419543/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/39383369

Although this story is a few weeks old, it is still worthy of comment as its focus remains ever pertinent in all of our lives.

As many of you are surely now aware, a Rutgers university student, Tyler Clementi, recently killed himself by jumping off of the George Washington Bridge. He was driven to this after his roommate videotaped him in an intimate moment with another male and streamed it online. This tragedy hits home for more people than just the freshman student’s family and friends- their loss is of course immeasurable. Tyler’s death is just one more example of how modern American culture, while touting itself as a ‘accepting’, really hasn’t come to terms with its strained relationship with the homosexual community, which is one of the last major groups to still be stigmatized both in de facto and de jure scenarios.

The word ‘hatred’ is something that we as a culture generally try to avoid, as most Americans view modern society as more liberal in its approach toward accepting different groups than past generations were. However, it is the perfect description for how too many individuals today view homosexuality. It is a moral crime of our generation that disdain for those who choose to love whomever they wish, irrespective of gender, is so ubiquitous. It is also shameful to the laws that define this republic that legislatures have kept homosexuals in a second order of society by preventing them the right to marry. Human beings should be able to fairly commit themselves to whomever they wish, without scorn or prejudice. Hopefully the precedent of freedom of marriage set out in Loving vs. Virginia (1967), will help serve to define a new and just legal precedent for gays in this country.

The similarities between the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the current struggle for gay rights is eerie. Many experts are confident though that the tide is changing. Cases like Loving vs. Virginia will hopefully come into play when gay marriage hits the Supreme Court. Also, the military appears to be close to disbanding its archaic “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. These advancements will only help strengthen the position of gays in the this country. We can only hope that cultural and social stigma and perception will change for the better as well.

February 22nd saw the passing of the 1000th American serviceman in Afghanistan since the United States began combat operations nine years ago.

How many of us have looked up from our daily lives and took note of the ongoing conflict? Despite your opinions on the war, most can agree that our troops should be supported.

While the politics of the war can be debated endlessly, the fact remains; hundreds of thousands of men and women our age have been sent overseas to fight and die for our ability to live free.

Remember the troops.

As any Lehigh Student will tell you, there are an excessive number of New Jerseyans attending our school. The Bergen County area is particularly well represented amongst the Lehigh student body. These students should be aware of the fact that local police in their home area are arming with military style weapons and vehicles. This excess on law enforcement’s part is something that local residents of North Jersey should be aware of and protest.

Read article here.

Update: The link is fixed and now will work properly. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Cornell is similar to Lehigh in many ways, and the former is considered to be an “aspirational peer,” of Lehigh – a gentle way to admit academic superiority to another school without damaging one’s own ego.

The “aspirational peer” technique has been one of the ways that Lehigh has looked to justify the creation of a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), as evidenced in Lehigh’s VPEC benchmarking report. While Cornell wasn’t a school included in the report, they have gone through a similar process.

Cornell created the office of Chief Diversity Officer in 2007. The result? From the looks of things, they have created both a University Assembly (equivalent of our Student Senate) and a school paper so terrified of Free Speech that they would each suggest willingly that Cornell should not have such freedoms.

For commentary on that story, check out the Cornell Review’s post on the subject, which also links to the editorial of the Cornell Daily Sun which so stunningly denounces free speech.

No one is advocating hateful speech, or harmful discrimination, but Free Speech is a cornerstone of our society and, quite ironically, journalism. Cornell has clearly done a good job on crafting a student body and especially a journalism wing so inline with school policy that they would openly denounce the first amendment.

With President Gast seemingly following this path as quickly as she can and with our dear Brown and White seemingly unwilling to go near controversial issues, it seems we could see a similar Lehigh within a few short years.

N.B. This article was not actually censored in any way. The message is in parody of what might happen to things written at Cornell in a year or two.

Each Sunday, the Patriot will provide a look at some of the news issues that you should know about. We know it is tough for college students to keep up-to-date on current events. The Patriot’s Sunday News Beat is your answer to that. This week’s column will be mainly an aggregation of links, due to time constraints.

George Will describes the Demorat’s attempts to prematurely end a school choice program in Washington D.C. designed to help lower income families, and how it demonstrates the Democrat’s consistent approach to make citizens dependent on the government. Article here.

Walter Mead takes a look at the New York Times attempt to cover the latest climate controversies, and details the extensive level of bias reporting within the article which leaves readers still without an adequate scope of the issues at hand. Article here.

Salena Zito takes a look at the current Congressional landscape, and discusses the crucial role that many Pennsylvania races are poised to play in 2010: Article here.

Mark Landsbaum of the Orange County Register has the most comprehensive list of falsifications and scandals perpetrated by climate “scientists.” There will be more to come on this later in the week. Article here.

Additionally, The Times (UK) covers the research of Dr. John Cristy, former head of the U.N. IPCC. His research has found that much of the warming reported at multiple stations worldwide was due to issues in the immediate area, and do not serve to explain the climate at all. Article here.

Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, of the Washington Post, expose the fact that the Obama Administration has preferred killing terrorists to capturing terrorists in overseas operations. They discuss some of the possible reasons for this radical policy, as well as the possible implications: Article here.

In addition to all of that, the Winter Olympics have begun in Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately, the start of the games was marred by the horrific death of a luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died while making a practice run on the course. Samantha Shields of the Wall Street Journal describes some of the aftermath of the terrible death: Article here.

You can follow the results of the 21st Winter Olympics at: http://www.nbcolympics.com.

That’s everything for now. Until next time, have a good week.

“The Pentagon’s most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites. These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea…

The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts. Similarly, U.S. bases in Afghanistan — a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the country — are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory.”

In a continuation of cold-war era politics, The United States has increased her projection of power across the globe, deploying military personnel throughout the globe in ever-greater numbers, with mind-boggling arrays of equipment; 1.5 million pieces in Iraq alone.

What are your thoughts on the deployment of the U.S. military? Discuss them here.

Each Sunday, the Patriot will provide a look at some of the news issues that you should know about. We know it is tough for college students to keep up-to-date on current events. The Patriot’s Sunday News Beat is your answer to that. Enjoy!

What’s in the news this week? Here at Lehigh, there isn’t much. There was a bird storm, followed by a snowstorm. Our bookstore manager allegedly ripped up several Brown and White’s due to an editorial he didn’t like, leading the Brown and White to claim that free speech was ‘stifled’. Given that their policy toward online comments – to never publish comments with links to outside sources – this editorial should be a good source of laughter for those who enjoy outright hypocrisy.

Looking to the bigger picture, here are the biggest stories and the best articles from the week.

Liberal Condescension

Gerard Alexander, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, wrote a great piece in the Washington Post on the history of liberal condescension in politics, and how it has been much more extreme than condescension coming from the right. It is quite enjoyable if you are open-minded, regardless of political affiliation.

Alexander’s Article

Climate Change Collapsing

Those silly “Climatologists” are at it again. More and more manipulations of data and misinformation are being discovered each day, and more and more news organizations around the world are covering the collapse. Most notably, India has decided to create it’s own agency to monitor climate change, since they feel that they cannot trust the IPCC. Additionally, the British head of the IPCC from 1997 – 2002 publically stated that the U.N. IPCC is on the verge of losing its credibility. Other instances of manipulation have been brought to light: baseless claims that climate change will destroy 50% of the Amazon, and manipulation of reports on water-stressed populations. With IPCC claims actually being scrutinized as they should have, it is quite likely that more inaccuracies and falsifications will appear over the coming weeks.

Healthcare: Pass / Fail Edition

In America’s most famous three-ring circus, Washington  D.C., Democrats continue to be flummoxed by the complexities of passing a healthcare bill that is opposed by a majority of the public during an election year. America’s angriest woman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi still says that the bill will be passed, but on the same day President Obama admitted that Healthcare Reform may not pass. Given the lack of newsworthy progress on the bill, it seems that President Obama’s outlook may be more likely.

Palin Speaks, People Cry

Liberals and Conservatives can unite in a fest of both laughter, and tears due to Sarah Palin’s latest reappearance.

For those who want to cry, or laugh, at Palin’s lack of logic and reason, Joan Walsh of Slate has an article for that.

For those who want to cry, or laugh, at Palin’s lack of vocabulary and sentence structure, there’s no better place to find that than from Fox News, where you can read, or try to read, the transcript of her interview with Chris Wallace.

The interview starts with a simple question and a butchered response, and it was all downhill from there:

WALLACE: How do you see yourself as a member of the Tea Party movement or a member of the Republican Party?

PALIN: Oh, I think the two are and should be even more so merging because the Tea Party movement is quite reflective of what the GOP, the planks in the platform are supposed to be about. Limited government and more freedom, more respect for equality. That’s what the Tea Party movement is about, so I think that the two are much entwined and I’m happy about that.

Additionally, her exchange at the end of the interview regarding her intentions for 2012 is particularly scary, due to both her many grammatical errors, and her bizarre reasoning.

That’s all we’ve got. Until next time, have a good week!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113582/Amazongate-new-evidence-of-the-IPCCs-failures.html

As the claims of climate alarmists continue to be investigated, the integrity of their premise continues to evaporate. While the article by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph (U.K.) outlines the previous unearthing of erroneous climate claims, it is worth reminding you here:

1.   Climategate - Hacked personal e-mails of top climate researchers reveal illegal dumping of information to dodge freedom of information laws, and also statements like “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

2.    Himalayan Glacier Debacle – Further investigation into claims in the 2007 IPCC report found that a statement was included – that Himalayan glaciers would all melt by 2035 – which was a blatant fabrication, and had literally no basis in fact. Despite being warned about this by at least one prominent glaciologist, the statement was included in the report anyway.

Which brings us to:

3.     Help us pretend to save the rain forest lie (also dubbed Amazongate by Mr. Booker) – As the article details, claims in the same 2007 IPCC report featured claims from non-peer reviewed, and essentially propagandist, material that stated that climate change would endanger “up to 40 percent” of the Amazon rain forest. This claim essentially had no scientific backing.

While climate alarmists continue to claim that we are headed toward a climate catastrophe, it is clear from building pile of falsified claims and unethical activity that these climatologists are shrouding the truth. As mentioned in a previous article of mine, The Common Sense Climate, there are many well-regarded scientists who disagree entirely with the theories behind human-induced climate change.

It is clearly time for the IPCC, the CRU, and all other organizations supporting climate alarmism to be audited, and for a truly independent organization to be created that will investigate the effects of human activity on the climate. Until then, the climate debate will forever be concealed by disingenuous propaganda.

Each Sunday, the Patriot will provide a look at some of the news issues that you should know about. We know it is tough for college students to keep up-to-date on current events. The Patriot’s Sunday News Beat is your answer to that. Enjoy!

• Last Friday, the Supreme Court made one of its most controversial rulings with regard to corporations and campaign financing in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 5-4 ruling overturned much of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and allows both corporations and individuals more freedoms to finance political advertising. The Wall Street Journal provides a good analysis of the decision as a victory for the first ammendment.
• This week, President Obama gave his first state of the union address (transcript here). In an interesting article, Peter Wehner of Politics Daily argues that Obama’s shifting of blame away from his administration should unnerve democrats. Meanwhile, Eleanor Clift of Newsweek claims that his speech should enthuse liberals.
• Even with the State of the Union being given, the fate of the health care legislation is still up in the air. Several sources suggest that Democrats may give up on the legislation and shift their focus to repairing the economy, which was the main focus of Obama’s speech. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama have all signaled that they “will not walk away from health care.” However, many moderate Democrats are shifting away from their support in light of the shifting political tide. John Bresnahan reports on Politico that influential Democratic Senator Evan Bayh wants to move on from the health care bill and focus on creating jobs.
• While news organizations specializing in liberal propaganda ignore the ever-decreasing credibility of climate alarmists, The Orange County Register has a great editorial detailing another incident that discredits their hypothesis. Specifically, the 2007 UN IPCC Climate Change report knowingly included a claim – that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 – that had “no scientific basis.” This follows the scandal in November revolving around several very prominent climate researchers. The issue was also covered in the Wall Street Journal, which shows that the IPCC was warned by glaciologist Georg Kaser that 2035 was “so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”

This coming week, we will likely see continued attempts by Democrats to accomplish something of note. Some commentators suggest their failures thus far have been due to having Gilligan, of Gilligan’s Island fame, as their highest paid consultant.

Until next Sunday, have a good week!